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In a solemn and majestic funeral on the steps of St. Peter\u2019s Basilica, the Roman Catholic Church on Saturday laid to rest Pope Francis, the first South American pope, whose simple style, pastoral vision and outsize footprint on the world stage both reinvigorated and divided the institution that he led for a dozen years.<\/p>\n
Heads of state, royals and religious leaders sat with an array of Catholic prelates in brilliant red robes around a closed cypress coffin holding the body of Francis, who died Monday at 88. Atop his coffin, the pages of an open book of the Gospels fanned in the breeze.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of thousands of faithful filled and spilled out of St. Peter\u2019s Square and streamed down the long avenue to the Tiber River. In the previous days, about 250,000 waited in long lines to say farewell to the pope, whose body was dressed in red vestments and scuffed black shoes, as he lay in state before the basilica\u2019s altar.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cThe guiding thread of his mission was also the conviction that the church is a home for all, a home with its doors always open,\u201d said Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals, in his homily during the Requiem Mass on Saturday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
As the cardinals arrayed around him prepared to head into a conclave next month to choose Francis\u2019 successor, Cardinal Re avoided obvious political overtones but highlighted Francis\u2019 pastoral and inclusive approach and his humble style as key to the esteem in which Francis was held inside and outside the church.<\/p>\n
Francis spread the faith with a sense of joy, a \u201cgreat spontaneity and an informal way of addressing everyone,\u201d he said, and a spirit of \u201cwelcome and listening.\u201d But Francis also \u201ctruly shared the anxieties, sufferings and hopes of this time of globalization.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Francis, perhaps the world\u2019s loudest voice for the voiceless, leaves the world at a moment of flux, when the migrants he championed are undergoing mass deportations, the authoritarianism he warned against is on the rise and the post-World War II alliances he hoped would provide peace are turning upside down. In a way, Saturday\u2019s funeral amounted to a final act for a pope who sought until the end to bring people together.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
President Trump, whose Christianity Francis once questioned, was there, as was President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, and they met inside St. Peter\u2019s Basilica before the funeral, in what the White House called a \u201cvery productive discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also attending the funeral were European heads of state and leaders of the European Union, which Mr. Trump has said was \u201cformed in order to screw the United States.\u201d There were also leaders of many of the countries Francis visited \u2014 some of whom he implored to make peace or to do a better job defending human rights. Former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., whom Francis once told he could accept communion despite his support for abortion rights, sat with other dignitaries.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
As a bell tolled a death knell, silence fell over the piazza, quiet except for the sound of sea gulls. Inside the basilica, 14 pallbearers carried the pope\u2019s coffin through a corridor of cardinals, dressed in red vestments, out onto the steps of the church. From above, the cardinals\u2019 section on one side of the coffin made for a brilliant red rectangle opposite the rectangle of dignitaries in dark suits.<\/p>\n
The whole square looked like a patchwork: purple, white, black, depending on the type of clergy and the colors blending together in the long crowd of faithful that reached from the square to the Tiber River.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Beside the coffin, sprinkled with holy water by Cardinal Re, the cardinals who will choose the next pontiff were somber with prayer and the burden of the coming conclave to pick the 267th leader of the church. With that choice, they will also decide whether the church follows or veers away from Francis\u2019 vision of a church that puts more emphasis on mercy and inclusion than on rules and doctrine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Some of them want to go further toward allowing women to be deacons or married men priests; others want to pull back. Some want to reach into Asia or Africa for a new pope to spread the faith; others want to bring the papacy back home to Italy to get the house in order after an eventful and, at times, destabilizing pontificate.<\/p>\n
But on Saturday, all the attention was on Francis, the Argentine of Italian heritage, born as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who was raised in a humble Buenos Aires neighborhood, became a Jesuit priest and rose to the pinnacle of the church. Once there, he tried to break the church out of its walls after decades of conservative rule, and to bring it closer to the 1.3 billion faithful where they were, both geographically and in how they lived their lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a pope among the people, with an open heart toward everyone,\u201d Cardinal Re said, standing behind Francis\u2019 coffin on the steps of St. Peter\u2019s Square. \u201cHe was also a pope attentive to the signs of the times and what the Holy Spirit was awakening in the church.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
With Mr. Trump seated a few yards away, Cardinal Re recalled the late pope\u2019s trip to the border between Mexico and the United States<\/a>, one of his many \u201cgestures and exhortations in favor of refugees and displaced persons,\u201d when Francis spoke of the need to \u201cbuild bridges and not walls.\u201d<\/p>\n